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CME makes content business grow in Central & Eastern Europe
May 14, 2010, Prensario Internacional
Founded in 1994, Central European Media Enterprises (CME) is a media conglomerate that operates 23 free TV channels in Central & Eastern Europe, apart from radio stations, and Internet business units. CME’s broadcasters reach approximately 97 million people across the region.
The group operates channels in Bulgaria ( PRO.BG and RING.BG ), Croatia ( NOVA TV ), Czech Republic ( TV Nova , Nova Sport , Nova Cinema and MTV ); Romania ( PRO TV , PRO TV International , Acasa , PRO Cinema , Sport.ro and MTV Romania ); Slovak Republic ( TV Markiza , Nova Sport , Television Doma and MTV ); and Slovenia ( POP TV , Kanal A and TV Pika ).
In 2009, Time Warner bought the 31% of the company shares, investing 240 millions dollars, and CME acquired MediaPro Entertainment (Romania) and bTV in Bulgaria. Morover, it sold the Ukrainian operations ( Studio 1+1 , Studio 1+1 International , Kino ) for 300 million dollars.
The group revenues reached in 2009 714 millions dollars, falling 30% in comparison with 2008 (1,09 billions dollars), due to week local currencies and the fall in advertising demand. According to the Q4 09 “Earnings Call”, the region recovery will start in the second half of 2010.
Country by country, the analysis stresses that revenues in Romania, Czech Republic and Slovak Republic have fallen, but they have grown in Slovenia (3%), Croatia (9%) and Bulgaria (25%). The total Broadcast operations of the group go down (15%), but the Non-broadcast operation increase (38%).
Bulgaria: entertainment shows and sports
The best performing programs in PRO.BG during 2009 were the movies and football. 43% of the program grid is locally produced versus 57%, composed by ready-made content.
The channel has deals with US Majors, being offered: The Legend of Zoro ( Sony ), Free Willy 3: The Rescue ( Warner ), Charlie and the chocolate factory ( Warner ), Constantine ( Warner ), The Tailor of Panama , ( Sony ). Regarding the football PRO.BG has the rights for the Bulgarian football championship, Champions League, League Europe, Carling Cup.
In terms of audience, the most popular shows are the local entertaining programs like Wife Swap , Beat the Blondes , The Late Show of Azis and the access show That’s right . The leading position on non-local productions is forMythbasters . In Top 5 most watched programs, there are also the News and PT series.
Stela Dineva , Acquisition Manager PRO.BG, says: ‘We have also volume deals with two of the biggest Latin American distributors: Televisa and Telemundo . We like the way we work with these companies and we aim to retain the same relationships with other distributors of Latin American content as well’.
Launched again on June 2009, RING.BG has been the only 100% local sports channel in Bulgaria for over 10 years and has built a brand that stands for high quality sport journalism and exhaustive coverage of local and international sports events. The channel target is 18-54 (male audience).
Croatia: local drama series Nova TV , the leading channel in Croatia, ended 2009 as the only Croatian TV station that increased its audience share. Nova TV got in Q4 30% share in target 18-49, which increased 24% compared with the same period 2008. Talent show Supertalent —Croatian version of Got talent — was recognized as ‘the’ show of 2009, getting 46,1% share, the highest rated TV show of fall 2009.
In fiction, locally produced, Nova TV hit the screen with the drama series Najbolje godine that became highest rated prime time drama series in territory achieving 35,4% share; Lud, zbunjen, normalan is the most popular sitcom in Croatia, positioned among 10 most watched TV programs in 2009, with 34,9% share. Central news Dnevnik Nove TV was highest rated central news in target 18-49 with 33,3% share.
41,5% of Nova TV ’s grid has own production programs, which sum up 857 hours in Q4. The channel produce other top formats, as the game show Trenutak istine , the reality show Gotovcevi , the Croatian version of Married with ... Children , the magazine Provjereno , the showbiz magazine Red Carpet , the daily lifestyle magazine IN magazin , the variety show Nad lipom 35 , etc.
Nina Mikola , Head of Acquisitions, says: ‘We are pleased that successful longtime cooperation with distributors like Televisa and Telemundo continued in 2010 when we brought back telenovela genre in afternoon day part. With titles Mañana es para siempre and Sortilegio , we increased our viewer share in early 2010 already. We also program Rebelde and Amor en custodia ( Telefe International ), among others’.
Czech Republic: movies & entertainment formats
TV Nova is the biggest commercial television station in the Czech Republic. The top programs in the local market are Tri orisky pro Popelku (27.4 rating and 57.1% share), Czech-Slovak SuperStar (27 rating and 64.3% share), TV News (26.3 rating and 69.8% share), the film Snowdrops and Aces After 25 Years (25.4 rating and 69.5% share), and TV News (25.2 rating and 75.1%).
Nova Sport broadcast sport events and sportrelated programming in the Czech and Slovak Republics. Nova Cinema was launched on the 1st of December of 2007 with a schedule comprising films and series from 12pm to 1am. After more than one year on air, it became the most viewed film-channel on the Czech market, addressing 15-54 target group.
TV Nova began operating MTV in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in November 2009 after entering into a licensing agreement with MTV Networks International . In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the channel is available in nearly 1.5 million households via cable and satellite. Its target audience is aged between 15 and 34.
Romania: high rated soap operas
Is in this country where CME has more operations, not only with the TV Channels ( Pro TV , Acasa TV , Pro Cinema , Pro TV International , Sport.ro and MTV Romania ), but also the production company MediaPro . Acasa TV produces 24% of its grid and programs the other 76% with canned content.
In 2009, Acasa TV ’s top rated program with a market share of 26.6% was the local telenovela Regina . Cuidado con el angel ( Televisa ) and Valeria ( Venevision ) were also the best-rated programs, achieving a market share of 16.7% and 13.6%, respectively. Aniela , the first Romanian costume drama produced by MediaPro Pictures and launched on September, conquered the audience with its impressive sets and costumes and achieved a market share of 9.8%. Little Angeles , outside our local one is, without any doubt, the
Latin American one. We were the first ones in the world to acquire from Globo , Brazil, the Emmy- Awarded telenovela India-A love story and we also just renewed the volume deal with Televisa . Latin-American telenovelas continue to be our main focus and, as always, we will acquire only the best available ones. We continue to have the volume deals with “Majors” telenovelas providers, and we cherry-pick from the others’.
‘American acquisitions are important for our dedicated weekend- movie slots and for the non-fiction femalespecials and life style content, as from the European one we choose, when needed, non-fiction formats, movies and mini-series’, she adds.
Slovak Republic: the Latin telenovela is the queen
The leading channel here is TV Markiza , which has 30% of its grid with local productions, like Czech & Slovak Idols , with 64,1% share, Televizne Noviny (news), 57,5% share or Good Company (entertainment show), with 48,3%. The telenovela is the queen in this market: Mariana de noche reaches 53,2% share, while Pasion de Gavilanes , 51% share, and Rebecca , 46,8% share.
Telenovelas were a success in Markiza, but with the launch of the new female oriented channel, DOMA (September 2009, see the special report, apart), this kind of programming was shifted to it: Pasion de Gavilanes got 9,4% share, Cuando seas mia , 5% share and La Madrastra , 4,9% share. The channel has successfully broadcasted titles such as Rebelde , Victoria , El Rostro De Analia , Destilando Amor , and it will continue betting to this genre.
Slovenia: informative shows
POP TV has been the most watched TV channel in Slovenia for many years. It attracted an average all-day audience share of 24.4 % in the 18 to 49 viewers group and an average prime-time audience share of approximately 31.8 % (after 19:00 hours; source: AGB Nielsen Media Research , year 2009). The programming strategy is to appeal to a broad audience. 96.2% of the country’s two million people can watch it 24 hours daily. It is also worldwide using the service Total TV.
POP TV has top rated local production and acquisitions with global hit series, films and telenovelas; exclusive races of Formula 1 and Moto GP and specials such as the Media Awards Viktorji . POP TV broadcasts 76.5 % of acquired contents and 23,5 % of locally produced shows.
The most successful local shows are positioned in primetime: informative main daily news 24UR is watched by even 50% of the viewers (12.8% rating); the informative weekly show Preverjeno! with a 40 % share (12.1 % rating); the entertainment show Lepo je biti sosed reaches a 14 % rating and a 45% share. In 2009 a very outstanding and popular reality show was Kmetija slavnih , with a 16.7% rating and 53% share.
Branko Èakarmi‘ , Programme director at POP TV , explains: ‘While Hollywood product takes up most of the primetime, along with the above mentioned local versions of globally recognized formats and hit US movies and series, telenovelas reign within our daytime (4 pm to 7 pm). They may have lost some of the power from the times of Kassandra and Esmeralda , but still prove to be a stable hit with the audiences’.
‘Not only that, we expanded them from POP TV , our traditional home channel into KANAL A , where younger and hipper audience can enjoy the different type of the format with hits such as RBD: Rebelde and Verano De Amor (both from Televisa). In recent time we also our audience choice by offering something closer to home: a regional titleGypsy Love , produced by the Romanian MediaPro and the “mex-main dish with a local side order” has proven to be a winning formula. Recently acquired hits include flagship Televisa product like Sortilegio , El Nombre De Amor and Mañana es para siempre , while we also acquire titles Dame Chocolate , Marina and Victoria from Telemundo and Venevision ’.
New Media
Robert Berza , joint head of CME Internet Division, provides Prensario a short description about what CME is doing in new media: ‘CME is also a major force in Internet challenging future of digital media. Leaders in Slovenia and among top 5 online players in Romania, Czech Republic and Croatia, we are reaching more than 2 million Unique Visitors per day with it’s more than 40 portals and websites spread over 7 territories’.
‘Our core audience is attracted on two major segments: TV Channel sites and News portals. This is the direct results of leveraging our top entertainment brands in the online world and these days local series like Ulice , Comeback , state telenovela or our entertainment shows like Dancing for you , SupertStar , Farma , which represent engines of Internet audience in our territories. This strategy allows us to lead position in Czech Republic on online video consumption with nova.cz and helped the overall performances in countries like Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia or Croatia’.
He finalizes: ‘News portals are for CME the foundation of a quality online audience and we are enjoying an important growth on this segment in all our countries. Yet, we feel that a wider portfolio is incredibly important to reach all advertisers and this is why in all markets we are developing different specialized portals. Those include different interests such as lifestyle, woman magazines, parenting, financial or health, are connection with our news portals’.
For additional information, please contact:
Romana Wyllie
Vice President of Corporate Communications
Central European Media Enterprises
Krizeneckeho nam. 1078/5
152 00 Praha 5
Czech Republic
+420 242 465 525
romana.wyllie@cme-net.com
